Loss
by self-piercing
Summary: Ino seeks out a self-help group for those who are grieving the loss of a child. She looks for comfort, but she finds something entirely different
1. Fence

On the other side of the door she heard scraping. It didn't kill the pounding of her heart, it was just an additional source of noise. He hand clutched to the door knob. She had to turn it and enter eventually. Out of all the thousands that must have opened this door and entered she was certain she was having the most doubts. It was a barrier. It wasn't just opening a door, it was admitting to what had happened.

Waiting for the feelings to cease was like trying to bite your own neck. As she started turning the knob it was like her arm disconnected from her shoulder. It wasn't her, it wasn't her body anymore. It was screaming, she was screaming as she opened the door and looked at the circle of chairs she had heard being created.

The room looked like a dentist office from the seventies. The curtains were dark blue with some abstract circular pattern, the chairs wine red and plastic. The office desk had looked better, but they weren't using it anyway. This was the sit in a circle and talk session she had always encouraged others to partake it.

This was Ino Yamanaka. Aged 34, recently separated. Doctor, specialized in pediatric cancer treatment and surgery.

She'd seen death before. She had experienced it almost on a daily basis. One out of ten patients of hers she would lose within the first year, give it ten years, 27% would have passed. It might not be a large number. It might not be a lot, but that's three out of ten families destroyed and lives changed forever. She'd passed on the message of death so many times she had almost felt like death herself. She'd been thanked, she'd been accused and she had been blamed. They all reacted differently.

She always reacted in the same way.

The same monologue.

The same tone of voice.

The same encouragement.

It was no longer heartfelt. She was numb by the pain it was to tell someone that their children had passed. The last year she had been numb to everything. It was a procedure. When all hope that their loved one was lost, the race was lost she would hand all of them the same pamphlet.

To a grief group in their local community. So that they'd have someone to talk to, someone who was going through loss like they were.

She never understood it. Even if it was what she worked with.

She never understood losing a child.

The empty void that would never fill no matter how many meetings you showed up to. She never understood how your own home becomes a prison, a constant reminder of all the life that has been sucked out if. Small steps that would never run across the floor. Shirts with scents that tears would wash away. Favorite foods that would go stale in cupboards. She hadn't known any of the sorrows when she ushered families through the system because they didn't have a child for her to care of anymore.

It was unfair. She hadn't understood that.

She hadn't understood how unfair the grip of cancer was. She hadn't understood how devastating it is when it hits your home, your family, your child.

The circle was already filling up as she had stood there holding back emotions already bubbling inside of her. Even the fact that they all seemed to familiar with each other made her choke back tears. Each and everyone in this room had lost the thing most precious to them and it made her feel already strangely connected to them.

She was amazed by the diversity of the group. She was surprised that so many were men. She was surprised by the tranquility she felt inside the room.

A man was helping himself to some of the crackers that had been set up. Eyes vibrantly red, she didn't need to be a doctor to detect that he was having trouble sleeping. The bags under his eyes was a dead giveaway. It was also his mobility, to her each one of his movements screamed exhaustion.

Next to him was a couple. One of them she recognized from school. The woman was heavily built, strong not overweight. Her clothes modest and proper with dimmed shades of purple. It was enough to make Ino look twice at her on the street. She was stunning, full of graze, almost regal. Her hair had a darker shade of blond. Her appearance made Ino believe that she wasn't a local. Diverting her gace a little to the right she something interesting. She hadn't seen this lady's partner since their ways took different paths in middle school.

Shikamaru. Dark brown hair long and gathered on the top of his head, beard hadn't been tended to in about a week. Nicotine stains on his fingers and constantly tapping on a cigarette pack in his pocket. He was stressed and uncomfortable. He must have been there because of her. He was giving what Ino's spouse hadn't been able to give, support.

Everyone deals with grief in their own way. Most ways aren't compatible.

A man came rushing through the door, blue eyes shot towards the clock thinking he was late. He looked like he had his act together on first glance. Suit on, brief case, blond hair cut short. If you looked closer you'd see his tie was poorly tied and lose, his sleeve had a stain and his brief case full of scratches. The least proper thing about him was the large grin on his face. Ino was no psychologist, but she'd seen this act many times. Often acted out by desperate mothers left without a child.

The door was closed behind them. The blond turned around and smiled at one of the two men that had entered. It wasn't returned but there was a change in his body language. From what Ino could tell the two men where brothers. Black hair, same blank face and almost same height. One was sturdier built than the other.

Ino took a small step back looking at the oldest brother. She had seen him, she had spoken to him and at one point desperately tried to calm him down and comfort him. It hadn't helped. He had broken some real expensive equipment that day. They had all in the hospital chipped in to help him pay.

It was one of the first faiths that had really hit her. It's one of the first things she remembered in her medical career. He had lost it all within 36 hours. It had all gone from heaven to hell so fast.

She had seen him enter the hospital around the time her shift had started. His wife was in a wheel chair and she was the depiction of beauty. Her green eyes were such a stunning contrast to her amber hair. Eyes big and lips plump. Still the most beautiful could be seen hidden in both of their smiles. The love and warmth they emitted. The pride that this was finally happening. They were becoming parents.

He hadn't changed much, if anything his face seemed more hollow and his body skinnier.

"Let's get in the circle, shall we?"

His voice carried so much melancholy now. It was deeper and in some sense it almost spoke of the horror he had experienced.

To no surprise Shikamaru is the first to fall down in a chair, literally fall. It's like he tosses himself like some coat and his posture mimics that. His wife sits down gracefully with her back straight. Opposites. Next to Shikamaru the blond man sits down, then the youngest brother, oldest brother and a few seats down Ino finds a chair.

"He'll be here?"

The blond looks over at the older brother who doesn't respond. The red haired man sits down a few seats down from Ino.

To them it isn't like she's there, and she almost starts doubting her existence. How many times hasn't she screamed to anyone, everyone, someone to help her change faith, in the dark of the night no one ever responded? It doesn't work like that. Ino has never believed in any religion. She had always believed in science, but science had failed her and there was nothing left. She once loved her job, she once believed she made a difference. Now she can only think about what negative aspect she can think of.

She isn't warm and comforting anymore. She doesn't do more than she has too. She isn't reassuring any parents. She's open and frank. She doesn't sugar coat any prognosis. She wants them to be ready, no matter how safe you think you are, things happen. Ino closes her eyes and fist. Hopes she is invisible. That this is her last good bye with earth.

"We have a fresh face."

She isn't invisible. She's seen by all and everyone in the room. All eyes are on her and she closes her own to protect herself from the intrusion. She had been having doubts about going here for months. She knew she shouldn't do it, but everything on her inside was threatening to explode if she didn't release her feelings. They had to get out. They couldn't stay all locked up in her anymore. She felt the hairs on her arms raise. She tried to think of something happy, but all her happy memories had now become painful reminders of what had been lost.

"Over to you Naruto."

Attention shifted. Ino slowly opened her eyes and they briefly met his eyes, the oldest brother offered her a quick smile. It made a rift in her very soul. He had seen her. He had seen her pain, when the others were all eyes. She didn't blame them for looking at her. She didn't blame them for being curious about a fresh face. She blamed them for looking at her and not seeing her.

"Even if it's been three years, last Wednesday I had cut up all her favorite fruit before she came home from school. Of course she never came."

"It's been a while since you've done that."

Ino had expected it to come from the older brother leading the meeting. The younger brother lifted his hand and embraced Naruto's with it. The movement was unexpected to Ino. The gesture was friendly, romantic even. There was so much information traveling between their eyes in a code only they could understand. It was their language and all of them were kept out. They had connected on a deeper level, a level Ino wished she could have connected with her ex-husband.

"I still think you're working too much, it triggers situations like these."

He put force into the embrace. The wind moved the curtains in the background. Ino was more than happy for the fresh air. She was suffocating in familiarity. She still set the table for three, made favorite foods, shopped. She had too many boxes of chocolate cereal to count. Normally she wouldn't budge on the sugary breakfast ban but she always had a feeling that something was wrong when she bought it. Her child was in need of some cheering up, like he was sick.

He had been sick. Very sick. Towards the end the cereal had been one of the few things he could keep down, especially after therapy. Now she kept buying them, sensing that something was wrong picking up the box but refusing her to acknowledge why it felt off.

"When I work I don't have to think about her…"

There was a shake to his voice. He looked down at the black and white checkered floor. They had ended their conversation. It was over now and tears were dancing, treating to fall over the edge and he'd spend yet another night in tears waiting for his office to open so that he could be someone else. Office Naruto was entirely different from childless Naruto. Office Naruto always had a big smile on, and sometimes even childless Naruto believed the smile. He turned himself off, he wasn't always there. When he came home early, not so tired that he'd fall asleep straight away, and when he came to the meetings he was childless Naruto. Then he was reminded.

"You should think about her, it's a process. It hurts, but if you process you'll be able to move on."

Naruto shook his head. To everyone in the group moving on seemed so selfish. The death of their children had become their identity. They were supposed to be miserable, if not it was like they were leaving behind their children. It was the older brother's job to guide them to a place where they realized that you're not doing your child any favors by being miserable. He too sometimes struggled getting there, he too had dark nights when nothing felt right and he wanted to give up.

"Does anyone here feel familiar in using work as a shield, a wall against reality?"

His eyes scanned the circle slowly waiting for someone to respond. He knew there was at least one person who was doing the same. He could even take a guess at who. Sound of fabric shifting, someone was raising their arms. Shikamaru, didn't put in enough energy to raise his arm properly. His hand hung limp close to his chest. Just how Ino remember him, halfway. He did everything halfway and then he saw himself as done, never reaching his full potential.

"Good, then you'll partner up after. What do you want to share with the group?"

We had moved on to Shikamaru. He looked over at his partner with a half-smile. One she didn't return, but crossed her arms. There was distance between them. Easy to tell that the death of their children had shattered them in the process. It happened, often.

Ino jumped in her seat when the door behind her opened. She was on edge, every muscle tense and every brain cell working hard to keep her in this reality. She'd been shifting from past and present. Felt like all her organs wanted to make their exit through her mouth, she'd die on the floor as she finally allowed her tears to fall. The ones she could feel dancing in her eyes. Coming here meant something. It was her first step admitting what had happened. Admitting that her whole world had shattered.

"We've argued seven times this week, three days were silent. It's, troublesome. It's exhausting, we don't want to. It just happens."

With them it had never just happened. They had been out for it. For a few minutes forget the sorrow they were sharing. If they got carried away, if they were able to reach the bottom the very high of an argument there would be no pain. For those minutes and even hours they would forget what had placed them there. Their son wasn't dead. They weren't arguing to forget him. There was only anger. Anger towards each other.

Had it been worth it?

Trading your husband for those few incidents where his death wasn't on your mind. Ino wished they could have made it out of the rough part together. That they would have stayed together. She needed support. She was now all alone in her misery. The pain she felt flooded her veins pushing out the life of her, making her feel dead, wish she was dead, she had no one to share that with. He had already moved on. She was laagering behind because she couldn't let it go.

The answer is still yes. Even now that she'd seen him move on with someone else, felt the sting of being replaced. She would still do it all over again. When everything was at its worst it was all she had to take her mind off things. The arguments made her forget the worst and she had desperately needed to forget.

"Arguments don't just happen."

She had almost for a second believed it had been her but it had been him again. He was looking intently at the couple. Ino shifted her gaze towards the newcomer. No one else had paid him attention. It was a sense of familiarity about his late coming. He sat down next to Ino and she got a chance to study him. The hairs on her arms stood up as she looked at him. Everything about him was so beautiful but wrapped in misery. It was there to see by the naked eye.

The sunken cheek told her that he didn't eat properly. It made him seem so fragile. Above high cheek bones were sunken eyes, grey skin beneath. He hadn't shaven for days. His clothes were well worn and ragged, body was slender but not as thin as you'd expect looking at his face. From his looks she expected him to smell like sweat and she wasn't certain, alcohol? He didn't. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes she'd almost feel like she was in the forest with the wind blowing on her over from the windows. Pines, he smelled like pines. He must have been a hiker.

"There's always something lying beneath them."

The elderly man chimed in. His hair prematurely grey, and yes most definitively a hiker. He had pieces of a branch in his unkempt hair. Something about him drove Ino in. She wanted to know more about him, everything about him. She was the stranger in the room. She didn't know much about them and they knew next to nothing about her. She didn't like it. She found herself worried about her impression for the first time since his death. It was the first time she had herself fully in mind.

It wasn't even herself. It was as if time stood still in the room. She watched Gaara scratch himself under his eye, she heard it, Naruto tilted his head, Itachi straightened his back. She was aware of it all. She was paying attention and she wasn't lost in a dark place deep inside her mind. She was there. She was present. She was aware.

"We'll talk about it, after. Gaara? Still not sleeping I see."

Ino was surprised when he didn't answer vocally. He did answer though. Fingers were moving, his arms were moving. Apparently he didn't speak vocally. His eyes were set on Itachi who watched him intently, as in deep conversation. They were deep in conversation. Ino knew some speech to sign, but she had never learned sign language and it was all so different. Knowing a few universal signs came in handy. You'd meet all sorts of people in her line of work, and sometimes her patients had lost the ability to speak or didn't have the energy. Then knowing a few signs to communicate came in handy.

"Gaara tells me that he's still having nighmares, they're still about the fire. Fire that comes from him but never hurts him. He still think it's unfair that he was the only one they were able to pull out of the house. It should have been his child and wife."

Shikamaru's wife clutched her heart. Ino didn't know the full story. Didn't know about the fire that had emitted in Gaara's house. It had all happened so fast, as most accidents. Gaara had run downstairs to see where the fire was coming from. The entrance door was blocked by flames. Fire alarms in his rental had been faulty and the fire was discovered all too late. He'd run off to warn his wife and children.

He had never made it to them, the fire had blocked his path. The scars on his hands and feet told everybody that he had tried not to let the flames stop him. He had tried to get to them, he had tried building some sort of bridge over the flames. It had been a fireman who had pulled him out. Not long after the staircase up to the second store had collapsed. Gaara was lucky to have survived, but he didn't agree to this himself.

They were all feeling guilty of outliving their children. No parent should have to go through it, but man had still to conquer accidents and all disease.

"I was at where it happened, again."

The man next to Ino spoke for the first time. No one seemed impressed or surprised when he placed his elbows on his knees and let his fingers run through his hair. The sigh that emitted was hardly loud enough for Ino to detect.

She didn't know about the accident. That this man, Kakashi loved the outdoors and wanted to pass that value on to his children. She didn't know about the rock climbing accident. That Kakashi revisited the spot his child hit the ground, where his body caved and gave up.

So much had gone wrong that day. Too much. Kakashi had always been strict on safety when it came to his children. He had modern equipment and taught his children the importance.

It was supposed to be an easy climb. It wasn't a difficult wall, the only thing was the height. When his youngest son slipped the safety wasn't sticking. The older brother was an extra safety for his brother. When some of the safety gave out the youngest fell fast. The abseiling went to fast, the oldest lost control, lost his ground. As his youngest brother hit the ground with fatal force the oldest was connected to his rope and was sent flying up the wall.

Father was left witnessing the whole thing. The moment where he would lose his youngest son and his oldest became paralyzed. The father would often revisit that spot, relive the whole ordeal. Try to find out how it could have been done differently, know where he went wrong. Know that no matter what he did he could never go back to before that day.

"No matter what, I can never go back. I go back hoping that something will change. That he'll be there again. That he didn't take his last breath, there, in my arms. That I didn't see the life disappear from his eyes."

Ino got out of her chair. She too had been with her son that night he passed. Her ex-husband and her had climbed the bed. There wasn't enough room, they smothered their son. He had been smiling, he had been smiling as she embraced him from the last time. She had been patting him until the morning. Her husband long gone. She had almost put up a fight when they came to get him.

It was first then it was real to her. It was then she had to accept that he was gone. Hearing someone having a similar story became too much for Ino.

She cursed to herself as she removed the empty chair next to her. She didn't know what she expected to feel in a room filled with people who too had lost their children. How could this help? Sitting in a rundown and tired office while listening to how miserable it is losing your child. What was it good for? Feeling even worse, Ino concluded. Being reminded the life isn't fair, and you're never promised tomorrow as the Christians preach.

Going to that meeting had been a mistake, it had only ripped up her wounds. Wounds she now was certain would never heal, would never cease to bleed and burn. She was branded, worse than a widow. She had lost a child. She had lost her own flesh and blood to a disease her job was to eliminate, but in the end she couldn't save her own child.


	2. Bench

Leaving that room Ino had not expected to see any of those faces who had been present, in that circle, never again. As soon as she had gotten out of that chair, the support group was an ended chapter of her life. They lived their lives and she lived hers. They lived in two completely different worlds, two different realties, two sets of living at the same time.

They were healing and she was existing.

She wasn't ready she thought. It had become a mantra in her head. Something to halter and push, not dealing with the fact that her son was dead. She knew, she was very aware, but she didn't want to deal with the factors, the impacts. Her child was gone, she wasn't ready to realize that she would never experience her new born grandchild in her arms for the first time. She didn't want to deal with the fact that she would never help her child decide on colleges and directions in his life. She would never find out what sport or after school activity he would have gotten involved with. She couldn't cope with the fact that she would never know what kind of man her boy would turn into.

She was living, she wasn't ready to heal. She would never heal. There is reason why you have a name for those who have lost a spouse, you're a widow or widower. There is a reason why you have a name for those who have lost both parents, you're an orphan. There is a reason why you don't have a name for those who have lost a child. If you've lost one of your children you're nothing. There's no name that can sum up the change, the feelings, the loss of outliving your child. How you failed the one thing you were put on earth to protect. The feeling of helplessness as you have to accept that there's nothing you can do with the faith of your child. You have to carry the empty numbness on your own. No words, no name for it. Nothing can cover it.

She wasn't one of those who could open up about her pain. She was keeping it all locked up as it was threatening to explode. Internally, not outward. Ino hadn't been an outward person since the results of her child's blood was handed to her. She wasn't told, she was handed the paper. Easily scanning the results she didn't need to be told that her child was sick, very sick. She hadn't viewed it as a death sentence at the time. Medicine and cancer treatment was always pushing boundaries. Cancer that would kill you ten years ago they are curing now. They had made progress.

She had failed to notice at an early point the disease her child was carrying. She treated this sickness for a living, but she had allowed it to grow strong inside her child. Inside her walls it was growing without resistance. It was just a routine check-up. She hadn't noticed it, she had been blind to the changes in her son. She spent her life curing what he was carrying, treating the children and killing the illness. The very thing that gave him life also contained the disease that would take him away from her.

She had let it take him away. She had let it happen.

So, she had fallen back into her routines after the first support group meeting. She went to work, she bought dinner from the cafeteria and she had her weekly lunch with her friend. Every day she knew what was happening, where she would be, what she would be doing.

It had become something safe with the whole routine, the whole familiar routine. It was no outside source there to shake her up. She felt safe having an agenda, having every day mapped out. Her son had been the same. He had been allowed to start school before they had to pull him out of class. He eventually became too sick, to exhausted and nauseous to get out of bed.

He knew his schedule by heart, he helped plan his lunch and he decided what he wanted to spend his evenings doing a week in advance. It had been the two of them. His father had not shared this view on time management. Time was ever present so there was no reason to try and tame it with a schedule.

Time wasn't possible to tame. His father had been right. They couldn't schedule for their son to recover, they couldn't schedule for him to live one more week, day, hour. Time wasn't to be bargained with. It ended when it decided. It ended when the cancer decided. Time was scheduled and decided over by the cancer.

Ino pulled the key out of her office door. She knew where she was going next. Today she had to buy a double lunch in the cafeteria. Spinning around on her heels she realised there was a surprise waiting for her when she found a familiar figure outside her office door.

He was crunched over, hair falling over his hand as he rested his head on them. It could have been any father in her wing. Someone begging her to do something, something more when she had already done all in her power. Powers she had learned was very limited. Or he was taking a break from what had become his reality: Checkups, white covers and the smell of sterile environment but it wasn't sterile. Children still got sick in the hospital, treatment having eaten up their immune systems.

She too had sought out refuge in the hospital garden. It had been left to itself for decades, it wasn't impressive, but it was there. It was green, it was life. It was something else than what she was used to. To her, white had become the colour of death. It was what they used to cover dead white faces with. A white cloth. A white face.

Green was vibrant, flowers reminded her that beauty wasn't everlasting.

She had yet to realize that her second bloom was nonetheless to come. Her summer would come once more.

He, the man, sat there motionless. His jeans tired, she was surprised the fabric on the knees hadn't given up and fallen down to the ground. She didn't know when he had showed up, she didn't know why. It had been so many years since he had showed up at the hospital. She hadn't seen him since that day, when she went to the support group.

His visit came out of the blue. It had been weeks since she went to the support group. They must have gone on without her. She had been an intrusion to their set ways. A stranger. Something alien that didn't fit in. That was how she had felt. They were all so close in their mourning and she could never heal as much as them. She could never be as them.

Instinct told her to sit down beside him. She had already locked up her office. Last half of Thursdays she worked from home. She had already packed all the necessary papers in her bag. She had all she needed to lock herself inside her haunted home for another day. She had everything she needed for another day in solitude. Paperwork always took more than a half day. The government was always breathing down their necks to do more paperwork and she was thorough. She took her time, her time was worthless now. She had no one waiting for her on the other side of her pile of papers.

Even with everything planned and sorted out her day had taken and unexpected path. She found herself sitting on the bench outside her office as she held the hand of a sobbing man. A man she had only meet twice and seen a couple more times. She had no comfort to give. She was living outside the situation. She didn't feel like she was in the situation. While her body was right there, her mind was experiencing the situation from afar.

Again she felt like they were living in different worlds on the same planet. For him it was fine to seek out a stranger and grab her hand while he was crying. To her it was so distant. They were in two different worlds, coming to a meeting point on a tired white bench. The paint was peeling off the wood. She had wanted it repainted for ages. She hadn't cared much lately. She wasn't caring much about anything lately.

She didn't care about being honest with one's feelings.

She was holding them back. Forever it seemed. She had forced herself to live in numbness. She was willing to sacrifice all the potential good moments to smother all the bad ones. She'd rather be indifferent than having for a week of pure bliss if the last hour of that week was dedicated to grieving her child. She didn't want any of that. The knowledge that she would never approve his bride might come creeping. The knowledge that he would never invite his friends over for his birthday. The knowledge that he would never fail a test. The knowledge that she would never once more embrace him.

So she sat there as he almost scratched on her thigh as he held her hand letting his feelings run rampant. What he was going through she didn't know. She assumed it was some sort of internal battle between feelings and reason. This was where he had lost everything. This was where everything had changed.

She could understand his reasons for this behaviour. She could understand why he was acting like this. She herself didn't have a place like this. She didn't have a place she connected with his passing. It was irrelevant to her where he had passed. It didn't hold a specific meaning. She knew what was going on. She knew he was dying, so his place of passing gave her some sort of bitter sweet relief. She had lost her son, but he wasn't suffering anymore.

It was all set and done. He was dust now. Something new, he wasn't a boy anymore. He was ashes in a jar.

The crying settled next to her. She had learned to recognise all the signs. How they gather their breath. Try to control it as the last few tears and sobs emit. The moment when their upper body drops as if they're turning themselves off. Then comes the sigh, the one that signals that they're approachable again. You can talk to them, they will hear you and respond. You're human once again and not a pile of sorrow.

"I always want her to come back."

His voice wasn't as painted by the emotional outburst as she would have guessed. He sounded almost collected. There was something sombre in his voice, it was like ice was running down Ino's spine hijacking every nerve in her body screaming that something was wrong. Something was wrong with him.

"I've never been back to the hospital since it happened."

She could only imagine what the emotional impact was on him, just being there was. She didn't even think what she imagined was close to what it actually felt like. It was something only he knew, it was something exclusively for him. So she wouldn't make a fool of herself and offend him by claiming she had any understanding of what was going on in his mind at all.

"I've been lucky enough never to have a reason to.

That was until you showed up and ran."

He retracted his arm again and suddenly she felt cold. So much colder than the ice running down her spine. He had come back for her. She was the reason of his pain. She told herself she had never asked for him to make that sacrifice. She hadn't asked for him to come.

He looked over at her and produced a crocked smile. His eyes were red and still wet with tears. It was amazing how quickly his mood had changed. He was smiling with tears still desperately clinging to his short eyelashes. Now he seemed almost playful, but it didn't change the fact that his face looked tired and drained at the same time. There was something fragile in his face. He was out of balance. He was so much clinging to something, to being something, someone after his great loss.

"I've made a commitment to help everyone that enters the door to my meetings."

She would never have opened the door that day had she known the guy running the sessions was so passionate about it. That he would actually care on a deep and personal level. That he'd take time out of his own day to seek her out even if she had made the shortest visit she believed, in the history of the support group.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have."

He shook his head. He was glad she had. It was easy to tell that she was carrying something heavy. There was only so much a person could carry without the help of others. He could see that she had been given too much. She needed to open up. She needed support.

He had several people he followed personally, through his grief program. There were many that for several different reasons didn't work in a group setting. He was hired full time as a grief councillor, but people didn't understand. They didn't understand the need, the impact the group had on its members and people certainly didn't understand why they needed a man working in a full time position when they only had three groups.

People were blind to the work he put down. They didn't see or understand how much work those three groups were, and they didn't see the private meetings like these. Itachi often felt like he clocked in more volunteer hours than work hours. He didn't mind. He was lucky enough to come to a point in life where he was comfortable with the past. He wanted the people in his groups to be at the same point in theirs.

"Sometimes life makes you feel like your drowning, and it's giving you so many reasons to not swim up, up for air. I'm here to guide you up. I'll be by your side in this process. I don't care how much help you need, I don't care how long it'll take. I'll grow old with you if that's what it takes."

She had a feeling that this was a man she couldn't turn down. He had the passion and drive she had graduated with. He was acting as passionate as her the day she received her research grant. He was her, before it all happened.

It gave Ino just a tiny spark of hope. He had been in her place, he had gone through the same loss. Arguably even more, and he had become like her, before it happened. He had blood pulsating though his veins, he had power, he had passion, he had a goal. He had faith that his existence had value, importance. She wanted to feel like that once more.


	3. Fluids

"The death of your child is a great loss, and it's constantly clawing at your emotions."

It was the first thing she heard ringing in her ears as she woke up folded double over her desk. She had to have fallen asleep at some point. Her computer was on, an envelope blinking in the corner told her she had received mail while she was out.

She looked around in the otherwise dark and cold office, wiped some drool that had been left free falling from her open mouth. A mouth that now was dried. She cleared her throat and listed to the sound resonate, bouncing back from the walls. She couldn't even remember where she had dozed off.

She didn't know what time it was, but it definitively felt like past midnight. Everything was so calm, not a sound could be heard except the fan on her computer. She had a faint idea that it was her back that had woke her up. It was a long time since she was a student, able to sleep on desks for extended periods. She was older now, should be more responsible with her health. Her body didn't allow her the same things anymore.

Ino had never been afraid of growing old. She had long since decided that she would age with grace. What her body turned into was something she would accept. Still she didn't like what she saw in the mirror anymore. It had nothing to do with her face, it was what was looking back at her.

He had had her eyes, though his eyebrows had been arched like his father's. So she didn't like her face anymore. She didn't like to see him in it. If she smiled some memory of him would surface, them on the swing set, him patting a dog on the street or something she wouldn't think of as memorable.

It wasn't the uncommon, it was the special moments she remembered the best. It was him finding his way to their bed at the middle of night, something she used to hate. It was him dropping treats in her purse, it was him picking out his own outfits with varied luck. You know? The things she was done with the day after. Things that made her feel, the everyday situations being a mother.

She got out of her chair, computer turned off. She should have gone straight to bed. Now that she was still drowsed with her still lumbering sleep. Her feet didn't carry her to her bed; she found her way to the kitchen. Out of habit she reached out her arm and turned on the boiler.

Sometimes the three of them would have evening tea together. It was family time. It was when they summed up their day, maybe told what they wanted to do that weekend. They used to be a close knit family. Weekends were never lazy and they always did their best to do something after work and school.

Now she came home alone to an empty house only to decide to do nothing. There was nothing left in her house.

She poured herself a cup of tea. She hadn't know it would end like this when her son received the diagnose that would kill him. She had never imagined herself living alone at this age. She, like everyone else, didn't imagine her marriage failing. She knew it was a possibility, but she had never thought it would actually happen. Especially not this way.

She knew it was for the best. It was better living alone than with him, how things turned out. Still her chest tightened thinking of him, her breath felt like it was stuck but reality was that it was coming rapidly. She still loved him. She still lived with some sort of hope that they would find each other again. When they had healed. When they were better.

Holding around the warm cup made her feel better as she walked aimlessly through the house. Slumber was no longer in her eyes that had adapted to the dark.

She had laughed earlier that day. She had let it roll out her mouth, no longer able to contain it in any way.

" _It's not that the man didn't want to juggle, he just didn't have the balls to do it."_

She let out a snort and sat down on the floor. She had soon after his passing given away everything. She didn't want it in her house as a reminder. The possessions were still functional, it would be a shame to hoard it when someone could make use of it. It made her feel better.

Some of the most important things she had kept. They stood underneath the window, three boxes. Otherwise the room was empty. The room trapped the sound of her drinking her tea. She wanted to move on from this. She truly wanted to heal, the scar would always stay but right now her life felt like a big gaping flesh wound spewing blood and pus everywhere she went.

She knew how her network treated her, she knew what they thought and they had allowed her to become like this. She was the divorcee who had lost her child. She was the big failure who had lost everything so of course she was allowed to be sad, of course she was allowed to embrace the depression and let it grow. By time it had become her. She was supposed to be sad, she was supposed to be miserable and everyone would judge her if she felt better.

Had they known she had been laughing with another man?

She flipped out her phone, facebook was already open in a tab when she opened her web browser. She only had to type in his first name before his profile showed up.

She needed something in her life to hold onto, and he had already found his. He had already found someone new and gotten two bonus children. Her heart ached, but she was happy for him. This was a man she had spent close to twenty years of her life with. Her feelings weren't supposed to die that quickly, and some part of her believed that the same went for him. He wasn't supposed to move on so quickly, he wasn't supposed to have a new family already.

She put the phone down and replaced it with her cup of tea, already cold. Already cold.

She tilted her cup and took to screaming. Hands in her hair she pulled to feel something, something that was real. Something that would calm her down.

It wasn't fair, it wasn't supposed to be like this.

Everyone saw her as something, a state of loss and grief.

She was supposed to act and behave a certain way.

She didn't want to be that something anymore, she wanted to be Ino again. Not the woman with a dead kid and ex-husband who moved on.

It wasn't her, it was breaking her down. It was an endless circle where one factor enabled the next and she was locked in the situation. She was truly locked.

She so desperately wanted to break lose, she couldn't take one more second of this silence. She wasn't ok, and it wasn't alright. She needed someone to fix her, someone to save her.

Down on the floor she felt as pitiful as ever, nails scratching the hardwood. Her throat was sore from the bawling and it felt like she would never get up again. She would never be able to stand on her feet again. So she screamed and she cried. Her heart rate was at an alarming pace but she didn't slow down.

"I miss you!"

She slammed her fist on the floor. She felt like she was lying in a puddle of her own fluids, saliva, snot and tears. She slammed her hand again. Hit an off nail that could have snagged her son's sock when he woke up in a few hours.

She kept living in the past by imagining what the present would look like. Each time forgetting herself and the life she was supposed to be living. She wasn't supposed to wonder what electives he would have at school, she should be thinking about getting out there again. Finding something to fill the gap her son had left.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Did you guys want me to continue or not?

Best regards,

Miss. Paranoid This Turnedadoto Shito (?)


	4. Hooked

_So sorry, don't know what happened. Only part of the chapter ended up being published? It should be here now, so enjoy._

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

"… it feels like I'm falling down this bottomless hole. On the way I keep bumping into familiar scents, sounds, memories. There's always something that reminds me off him."

"There's always going to be when you're looking!"

She shot up; her slumped back was straight now. His voice so stern. He was dismissive in his tone. It wasn't up for debate whether she went looking or not. There was no room for negotiation in his words. She went looking for it, her pain was her own creation.

She didn't go around looking for him; she wanted to put it, the pain in the past. She was working hard to get over it. Her mouth fell slightly open. She couldn't understand that she had finally started coming and now three months down the line she was ready to tell her story, to open up.

Not now. Not when they were putting her efforts down. She wasn't looking for him; she was haunted by everything that was him. Her nostrils moved at record speed like a bunny picking up the scent of a fox. Her legs were clamped. She didn't need to stay, she didn't need this. She could just as well go home and be surrounded by him there.

He looked at her, didn't turn towards her. His legs were pointing towards his brother. Safe. He was looking at her from the corner of his eyes. He wasn't translating this for Garra. Itachi couldn't translate it to himself. The others were shifting. There was a certain edge to the room. All had they been pushed by Itachi. He had a way of finding their buttons at the most suited time.

Not by interrupting them.

Not full force.

Not openly in the group.

Not the first time telling their story.

And there it was. Like he had switched a flip. Tears. Streaming. Endless. Uncontrollable. Wild. Unstoppable.

The whole room was silent as Ino opened her mouth to suck air in, turning it to a primal cry on the way out. She hadn't been able to cry over her son in front of others. The only one who had seen her mourn her son with tears was her ex-husband. He was the only one she had trusted to witness her emotions. Her desperate sorrow. Everyone else had met the poised and collected Ino, who now carried an internal sorrow.

Nothing they said could ever tip her over. At first, they had shun her for it. She wasn't mourning as they had expected her to be. She was empty. There was nothing inside of her. She didn't cry. She didn't not cry because she wasn't sad. She didn't not cry because she was not missing her son. She was not crying because there was nothing there to cry with. She was empty.

At home she felt. At home she cried. At home she was safe to cry . To feel. Here she wasn't. Doubled over on the dirty floor of some recreational centre. This wasn't safe. Yet she howled like there was no tomorrow. Like she used to on his floor in the dark. There was tears, snot and drool all over. She was alone, but it was public.

As she felt her throat ignite and everything burn she felt a body slump down on the floor opposite her. She didn't even notice him trying to hand her a paper towel.

She looked like a mess. Hair was sticking to her face, her eyes red when she didn't have them forcefully clamped together. She tried hiding her face behind her knees, but he could see. He could see her pain as clear as day.

"I don't go to these things to get fixed."

Kakashi leaned his head on the wall behind him looking up at the ceiling turning yellow by age. He didn't go there to get fixed. There was nothing that could fix them. They were forever broken. Nothing could change the past no matter how many times he went back in his mind. No matter how many times he imagined the accident not happening. Him never taking his kids outdoor. Him never letting them do something as dangerous as climbing. It was too late for them. Both him and his sons. It was already done.

So, they had to learn to live. They had to go on. Go on from what couldn't be fixed.

Ino let out another howl. She had already broken the barrier. She was crying in front of someone. Someone who wasn't family, but it was someone she hoped would understand. Yet it didn't feel right, didn't feel dignified to burn into a weeping mess. She had no control over herself.

She had seen this reaction many times. She had witness it. She could never relate to it. Losing yourself, letting yourself be so vulnerable in front of others. Ino never cried in front of others like that. Not even as a child had she allowed herself to be phased by bruises and words. She controlled her emotions, she owned her emotions.

"It's not right losing a child, but there's some beauty in it."

Kakashi placed his hands on his knees. His life had forever changed since he lost his son. There was some good that came out of it. There were some good changes that came out of it, did they make up for losing his son? Not even close to, that was why he was going to be forever broken. There was nothing that could make up for what he had lost. He had lost what was closest to him.

He wanted to reach out to Ino. Let her know that what she was feeling was perfectly fine. That crying didn't make her less of a person. At some meetings they had all cried. One by one, didn't even have to be their own children that made them cried. He had cried when Ino came that first day. Cried because she was so small and scared. Still was. She still needed their help but it seemed like there was no way of getting to her.

Her walls were high and thick. She had been alone with her sorrow for so long. She had allowed it to wrap itself around her like a blanket. A state that felt permanent and by that felt like home. He had been there himself. Blaming himself. Kakashi hadn't been sad, he had been angry. He had been so angry with himself.

No one in the group had blamed themselves for their child's passing as much as Kakashi. Had been so mad at the world, but mainly himself. For what had happened he could never forgive himself. That would never repair. How much he had resented himself. How he so easily could blame himself for what had happened. It had all been him.

He felt his chest rising just thinking about it. What he had done, what he had caused. It didn't bring him back, it didn't change anything, but he felt he deserved it. He deserved all the pain and misery in the world for what he had caused. It was him.

And so, he was crying too. Crying over his son that was never coming back, his son that might never walk again, for Ino who couldn't let herself feel in front of others and he cried out of bitterness for himself. As all these thoughts ran through his head he felt selfish. For allowing himself to get so upset when it was all his fault.

As if her feeling was contagious Kakashi felt himself falling down that trap hole. Where everything was darkness and he was the one going down the street killing every light as he went. He wouldn't rest until everything was dark, because he deserved it. He was the reason behind this. He was to blame for his son's death.

As the accusation ran through his mind in big bold letters and he was filling his lungs with air he felt heat. He felt skin touching his.

He looked down to see his index finger locked with hers. It was only the tip, as if they were hooks connected to each other on this wild and vast sea. So fragile that just the tiniest wave could separate them again. For now, they were connected. For now, they were one.

"I can't forget him."

It sounded like a plea, with so much power than the volume spoke of. She would never forget him. He would never be a thing of the past. She would see in time, she would learn. Years isn't much time to heal when losing a child. It is something you will never recover from. It is something you never will forget. Kakashi was certain that this was something you carried for life.

"I'll help you remember, Inojin."

Ino nodded feeling herself regain some control of her emotions. She would have to gather herself, she would have to land eventually. Now was better than later.

"When he was four he refused to get his hair cut."

She smiled and let out a small chuckle at the memory. How he had struggled saying no and avoiding her scissors like the plague. They had written it off as him wanting to go to the hairdresser to get it down. Also there had he made a scene screaming and squirming at the idea of having his hair cut. By that point it was so long it was getting in his eyes and everywhere else really. It grew so fast.

"Someone at his kindergarten had gotten cancer and lost their hair. She had gotten a wig, but they didn't have one that she liked because they didn't have that many."

Ino sniffled and looked up feeling the tears pressing again. He had been so thoughtful of other. He had always wanted to do the right thing. He had always done what he thought was right.

"And he also knew from my work that chemo patients lose their hair. That's why he didn't want his hair cut, because there were always children needing wigs and everyone said his hair was so beautiful that he wanted other children to have beautiful hair too."

Ino was sobbing again. Now it didn't feel as dirty and tainted. It felt right crying at this point. It hadn't ended bad the first time. It hadn't harmed her. She was just a mother, missing her child. There was nothing wrong with a few tears. Not when she had support around her.


End file.
